The eyes of this cultivar's figs are tight, and not closed. Heavy rains cause many of the figs to split. They do not sour if you check them nightly. It's figs have a good humidity and rain resistance.
'Black Bethlehem' produces some of the very best tasting 'Dark Berry' figs around. The pulp of the fruit that 'Black Bethlehem' produces is like a sweet to very sweet, rich syrupy strawberry jam, or rich syrupy raspberry jam. Some people claim that it's flesh also tastes like grapes or fruit punch. The taste of it's flesh is complex, as well as 'somewhat creamy', and it's taste stays as an after taste. Black Bethlehem's fruit is 'small to medium' in size, their flesh has a firm and chewy texture. Their flesh is a strawberry red color, which might get dark if properly ripe, with little to no seed crunch.
This cultivar takes about '85 days to ripen'.
A very productive cultivar, it fruits at a young age, it often produces in season 2. The figs ripen in early August. The fruit ripens early to mid-season.
When properly ripe, and grown in full sun the skin of it's fruit is dark purple 'almost black', tender, thin, and tasteless skin.
Will dry on the tree if left long enough in dry warm/hot weather.
This cultivar falls in to what some people consider the 'Mount Etna flavor group', and it has some other similarities to the Mount Etna type, yet without serious dna testing 'can we actually really understand what the Mount Etna type really is' beyond just a flavor group? I personally think that people way to easily just put all the supposed 'Mount Etna' cultivars in one group as if they are the same thing. Each one has different weaknesses and different strengths, only in a nearly perfect climate for figs do those differences not matter so much, most of us don't live in such an ideal climate for figs.
Some think that this cultivar has little to no relationship to other supposed 'Mount Etna' cultivars, some things that make this cultivar unlike 'Mount Etna' are it's 'pinkish red tips', and when it's leaves harden off 'white freckles' then appear on the leaves. The leaf shape may not always match the common leaf shape of supposed 'Mount Etna' cultivars. Even though the flavor of the fruit of 'Black Bethlehem' is very similar to the 'Mount Etna flavor group', the flavor of it's fruit is still significantly different tasting as well. It's said to be better tasting, a little less intense, and more juicy than Hardy Chicago.
This cultivar is healthy, and it's vegetation grows like a weed.
Bass (the owner of 'Trees of Joy') discovered this cultivar in a Greek neighborhood, which was located in the city of 'Bethlehem, Pennsylvania'. He found it in 2009 while he was out looking for new fig tree cultivars that were family heirlooms. Something that he normally does, one fig tree in particular caught his attention. A very large fig tree, it seemed unusually productive for his climate. The Greek man who owned the fig tree let Bass take some fig cuttings, he rooted those cuttings in 2009. His tree of this cultivar first fruited in 2011, the tree became more productive, and it produced better tasting figs as the years past. Bass named the cultivar after the place that he discovered the original tree, and after the fact that the skin of the figs is black, well almost black, so the name 'Black Bethlehem' came in to being. This cultivar is believed to have originally come from Greece.
This cultivar does 'good to great' in-ground in zone 6+, the only protection that the original tree has, in it's original location, which is located in 'hardiness zone 6b', is the fact that it was planted against a wall which helps to protect it against dangerous winter winds, while it receives warmth that very slowly leaks from inside the building. In that climate this cultivar rarely has serious die-back from the cold, even when it does, it still fruits well the same year. The damage that the polar vortex caused 'January - March 2014' caused the original tree of this cultivar to die-back to about 1-2 feet, just the same it recovered, and it fruited well that same year.
If you plant this cultivar in-ground 'in zone 6a or colder' then it needs way more serious protection. Not only for the tree, also for the roots.
